He Apex Court Will Be Looking Into Pillow Covers and Bed Sheets. What Is Happening?” Asked Justice A.K
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Cover Story MURDERS ATHOME Murder has a terrible new face, new motive and a new address.Across urban India, seemingly normal people kill their closest relatives in the name of love, sex or jealousy. By Damayanti Datta he apex court will be looking into pillow covers and bed sheets. What is happening?” asked Justice A.K. Ganguly, on January 6, while hearing an appeal from Arushi’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar. He refused to examine bed linen, a piece of evidence Tin the murder of the teenager at the Talwars’ Noida home in May 2008. His verdict was clear: the Arushi Talwar murder trial would begin on February 4 at a Ghaziabad court. The Talwars, who had been using the legal process to delay trial, had finally run out of options. Accused of killing their teenage daughter and the domestic help, they now face criminal proceedings to prove their innocence beyond all doubt. A lot more than bloodstained linen will now be under judicial scrutiny. Across urban India, bedrooms have become dangerous are- nas, of war, not love. The enemy is within, waiting to strike. In Bangalore, Kumar, a 27-year-old garment worker, hit his preg- nant wife in a fit of anger for demanding new clothes on New Year. The blow killed her on January 4. In Delhi, Gaurav Arora, 22, ARUSHI TALWAR, FOUND DEAD AT HER Photoimaging by MADHU BHASKAR /www.indiatodayimages.com HOME IN NOIDA ON MAY 16, 2008 JANUARY 23, 2012 N INDIA TODAY 23 Cover Story MURDERS ATHOME shot his two teenage cousins on discoloration and injury from brutal vi- G U E S T C O L U M N Dr T.D. Dogra January 2, because they inherited a olence. “It makes me unhappy to say much larger share of ancestral prop- this, but domestic murders are emerg- erty than him. In Chennai on January ing as a major trend,” he says. BODY OF EVIDENCE 7, a 56-year-old employee of a private The police agree. Increasingly de- company, Muthu Palaniappan, killed tectives have to force their way into The dead don’t speak but forensics tells us lots about crime his wife with a crowbar for fighting genteel apartments, corral and ques- s a forensic scientist, one encounters the dark and ugly side of inti- neighbours over TV noise. He told them tion aloof neighbours, and check fin- later: “I have solved the issue.” gerprints in a sea of modern gadgets as Amate relations. One of my first cases of homicide was a domestic An epidemic of domestic murders WHY I WHY I doctors search for foulplay on well- murder in the 1970s. I had just joined forensic medicine at AIIMS. has broken out over the past five years, clad corpses. “The crime graph is The police had brought in the body of a 75-year-old woman, a resident peaking in 2011. Police files show inti- KILLED KILLED changing,” states B.K. Gupta, Delhi of Lajpat Nagar, Delhi. It was natural death, we were told. But we found mate partner violence, driven by unre- Police commissioner. Property disputes that she had been strangulated manually. Police investigation revealed quited obsessions, hidden desires, illicit HIM HER and enmity, the usual bulk of urban that she was killed by her son for property. relations, jealousy, or a sense of being crimes across India, is stagnating at We came across the case of a wife, who refused to return to her wronged. In the midst of a busy news Confessional statements Confessional statements around 18 per cent since 2007-08, husband despite his requests. So he came over to her parents’ home, year, while headlines got bigger over by wives to police, in 2011-12 by husbands in 2011-12 shows National Crime Records Bureau dragged her out to his Maruti van and forced sexual intercourse on her repeatedly. And during the struggle, he strangulated her. Our the 2G scam, Anna Hazare’s protest or (NCRB) data. Crimes of passion and the rupee crisis, quietly, in the privacy He was a drunkard and used to ha- I was fed up with her.She nagged me provocation have upped from seven to post-mortem examination revealed the full extent of his actions, of the home, the “ordinary” Indian was rass me regularly. all the time to buy her jewellery. about 35 per cent during this time. particularly the vicious love bites. The DNA analysis of vaginal stains busy honing the extraordinary art of “They are unplanned and happen in sealed the case and he was charged with murder. I was fed up with his relentless murder. Not criminals, not psy- She made fun of me,the way I look moments of rage after heated argu- There was also the case of a 20-something young man with multiple demand for unnatural sex. chopaths, not dowry assassins or hon- and how I make love to her. ments.” Ninety-three per cent of the ac- stab wounds. Our examination revealed a homosexual orientation. It our killers. Just friendly next-door He was cheating on me. cused are first-timers belonging to all was a vital clue that helped the police nab the real culprit: a man who had invited the victim for a party and killed him with a sharp weapon. neighbours who, until the day they She would always call to check on strata of society—MBAs to auto drivers. He suspected that I was having an killed, looked perfectly normal. me and disturb me at work. Have homes become dysfunction- It is said that the dead can’t speak but for us they tell their own extramarital affair and would fight Who would have imagined that auto al? Urban families look as if they have tales. During autopsy, we study driver Ranjit Das, 46, of Guwahati could constantly over it. She would protest whenever I went a lot to celebrate: 46 per cent of India’s everything: tears, stains, cuts, soil- ing or foreign materials in clothing; decapitate his wife and then march He was a pervert.He watched porn to my parents’house. 295 million households splurged on body injuries, say, love bites, teeth through the streets, as he did in October films in front of our daughters. shopping and entertainment in a year 2011, just because he felt she had We weren’t on the same wavelength. of inflation; 67 per cent urban profes- bites or stains, for evidence of vio- He used to beat me when I wouldn’t lence; genitals for proof of forced cheated on him? Or that Anushree She was cheating on me. sionals are “happy” with their work; 60 Kundra, 39, a Bangalore professional, give in to his demands. or voluntary sexual activity. We check evidence of repeated vio- could visit her former boyfriend in Pune I wanted to be with my love. She called me impotent.I killed her. and, as recorded in October, burn his fi- GAURAV ARORA (RIGHT) lence, immediate cause of death, IN POLICE CUSTODY ance alive? Or that one day in Sept- strangulation, stabbing, blunt force or fire-arm injuries and for ember last year, Anita, 30, a ACCUSED GA URAVARORA, 22 homemaker in Betul, Madhya Pradesh, foreign materials—hair, fingernail VICTIMS Cousins Shivani Arora, who had never dared to refuse her hus- scraping, swabs or stains. band Ramcharan’s demands for ‘un- 19, and Vishal Arora, 16 Post-mortem changes give us the time of death: bluish-purple or natural sex’, would just snap. When he purplish-red discoloration under the skin after death that indicates the started to display indecent video clip- CAUSE Contested inheritance amount of reduced haemoglobin in the blood; rigor mortis or the stiff- pings on his mobile, she picked up a LOCATION DELHI ening and contraction of muscles that occurs two to three hours after stone and smashed his head in. WEAPON Country-made revolver death; signs of decomposition; asphyxiation and poisoning. The stale stench of death in urban Internal injuries or damage due to violence lie hidden deep in the homes is familiar to Dr T.D. Dogra who THE CASE It was 7.55 p.m. “Are body. Muscles are incised, and the three major body cavities—head, has for 40 years seen bodies in all you home? I’m coming.”His is chest and abdomen—are cut open. The moment you open up the stom- ach, typical smells speak volumes about the manner of death. Kero- stages of disintegration. The head of the last call on Shivani’s mobile. sene, alcohol, cyanides, everything gives off its own smell in the gut. forensic medicine at All India Institute He went down to the floor be- of Medical Sciences, Delhi, ferrets out DNA profiling plays a major role in establishing the identities of both low and shot the cousins point- the victim as well as the assailant. Here, biological trace evidence—from the dark, chilly secrets inside dead bod- blank. He rummaged through ies. Murder, in his experience, was gen- hair, skin, carpet fibres, paint, glass particles, dust, dirt, pollens, semen, the house to make it look like a erally the domain of professional saliva or sweat—left by the assailant at the scene or on the body of the robbery. His father gave the criminals. But these days, as he inves- deceased plays a major role. The corpses also tell us about the personal- tigates bodies sent in by the police, he police the first lead, saying ity of the murderers: the proprietary attitude towards partners or close is increasingly struck by the smell of Gaurav was unhappy about family members, the propensity towards violence, obsession with household chemicals in the viscera, the his grandfather’s will.